“We all know surfing is wonderful, it’s a lifestyle for many people, but it needs to evolve a lot in its environmental awareness. <strong>SB</strong> / #55 / 66
“I am happy to know the first surfboard in the world made with 100% vegetable resin was made with my hands. Surfing is life, and our future will depend a lot on taking actions like this,” he said. “In 2005 I decided to build a factory in my home town of Santa Catarina, where we really made an effort to put an end to surfboard wastage and developed an environmentally-sound manufacturing process. “Two years later I decided to make an ecological manifesto during the world surfing championship in Hossegor, France. There, I witnessed a surfing market that was totally detached from my purpose and values, so I stopped making epoxy surfboards. That is when I invented a recycling process with wooden boards, and I managed to get a green patent. “In 2017, I got a call from a person that was in the process of developing a more eco-friendly resin, so I bought some of that to apply to my wooden boards, and that’s when I saw an opportunity to create a completely natural resin.” Laminating a board naturally is not an easy task, as every ingredient is going to affect the resin’s drying speed, strength, clarity, hardness and weather resistance. For three years Mario experimented with all sorts of natural materials until he created the perfect mixture with castor beans. Mario said for every board he’s made he has strived to understand how to work with the materials, so for the vegetable resin it was no different. “So many years were dedicated to finding the answers to the problems that the vegetable resin presented to me until I finally validated it for the market.” “The resin makes the boards light and strong – and the amazing thing is that it performs in water just like a PU board but uses EPS foam. “I would love other board shapers to have access to the vegetable resin. In relation to expanding, I think it would be perfect to start in the country of surf – Australia. I am open to the idea of starting a lamination company there and later expand to other countries.” Mario said while concocting his unique resin, he reached out to Entropy Resins, a company that supplies bio-based epoxy for surfboards. “From talking to them I discovered that they do use a lot of clean energy and natural materials in their product. For epoxy especially, it’s a feat to make it that environmentally conscious. However, making epoxy still leaves a lot of emissions no matter what, which is why I wanted to focus on a new type of resin that produced little to no carbon emissions. “Right now, the biggest hurdle I have found with my resin is that, to cure the oil completely, it needs a few months. It’s like making wine. At the moment the resin cannot be used on white boards either, only colour, because it has little UV protection.” Mario is in the process of launching a new series of boards laminated with his vegetable resin. In his spare time, he uses the leftover resin to create earrings from dried leaves in an attempt to showcase that synthetic materials are not needed to create beautiful products. Mario said he realises that professional surfers are the most influential opinions of the industry, and so what they think and use – the market accepts. “It’s with the help of professional surfers that we can change the overuse of toxic resins and begin to use more ecological and sustainable methods of laminating boards. “We all know surfing is wonderful, it’s a lifestyle for many people, but it needs to evolve a lot in its environmental awareness. “I am happy to know the first surfboard in the world made with 100% vegetable resin was made with my hands. Surfing is life, and our future will depend a lot on taking actions like this,” he said. folhabyferminio 67 / #55 / <strong>SB</strong>
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